


Fifth Christmas

by tatooedlaura



Series: Christmas [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Post-Episode: s06e06 How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 19:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9781130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Compliance through food tonnage is her specialty





	

She was quietly submerged in a self-protective bubble of sanity. Outside her bubble, shoppers, children, angry males and even crazier women circled and flowed like liquid around her. Why she did this to herself was beyond comprehension. Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She would have been better off just giving everybody a note saying they’d get stuff mid-January and stick a Hershey’s kiss on it with the last roll of tape she had in the house.

Instead, she was here, wondering if God was laughing at them all while he lounged with a cup of hot chocolate, dishing with Santa about the naughty list and made fun of this year’s clothing trends.

That made her smile a little bit and gave her the boost she needed for three final stores and the fight to leave the hellishly packed parking lot. Congratulating herself for not using her gun, she began her drive home.

And the phone rang.

&&&&&&&&&

After racing away from that ‘haunted house’ as Mulder called it, she drove home, exhausted, annoyed by the prospect of having to wrap gifts, in all manner of shapes and sizes, before getting a mediocre nap and returning to the road for her mother’s.

And thinking about it, she hadn’t really ‘raced’ away from the house … it was more like driving leisurely with the pedal just a bit closer to the floor … there was no reason to ‘race’ away from anything, except maybe the next hair-brained idea that Mulder was probably concocting even as they headed for their cars.

She stopped her thinking right there, given if she dwelled too long, she could probably convince herself that there were actually ghosts.

That is the last present Mulder needed.

Finishing wrapping her gifts nearly an hour later, then stacking everything back by the door, she then noticed the item she’d bought two days earlier and had forgotten to wrap, the item falling into the Christmas detritus strewn across the floor.

She’d found the perfect gift for Mulder.

A fitting, unique, totally him gift.

Pulling it towards her, she studied it again, let the smile creep across her face, then pulled the wrapping paper towards her and proceeded to tape the hell out of every seam and possible pulling point.

After, against every atom in her body screaming to go to bed, she pulled her shoes back on and headed into the 3am darkness.

&&&&&&&&

He was truly delighted by his gift, an ornament, one she’d found on complete accident while shopping with her mother. A large red fox being hugged by a little dark-haired girl, the fox with glittering green eyes and the girl with a smile and a crown of flowers, kneeling beside the animal, arms tight around his neck.

She’d gotten a little nervous when he began shaking the box but knowing she’d packed it well, it survived his wild, paper-ripping opening to stun him into silence. She’d had to nudge him lightly with her elbow to get him to move again, to take the breath he needed to turn to her, crush her and her still unopened gift against him in a tight hug.

When he finally let her go, muttering to himself, “78 seconds, we’re getting better at this”, he took the bauble from the box, dangling it in front of his shining eyes, studying it with intense scrutiny, then shifting to catch her eye, “can we go put this on your tree?”

“Right now?”

“Yeah … well, right after you open your gift, I mean.”

Honest-to-Jesus, she couldn’t deny him while he wore such hopeful excitement on his face, “you don’t want to keep it here?”

“Nope. I want it on your tree.” Such matter-of-fact declarations from him were not surprising anymore but they still made her spine tingle.

“Then I better get to opening this, shouldn’t I?”

It turned out that Mulder’s round, cylindrical gift, was neither round nor cylindrical but a small set of windchimes packed carefully and securely into a thick cardboard tube. Holding them up, they made a deeper sound when she tapped them, lower notes that didn’t pierce her eardrums but soothed with their grandfather clock resonant gong. She realized instantly that they weren’t by any means a cheap gift and looking at him, “you shouldn’t have spent this much, Mulder.”

“It’s Christmas so shut up.” Grinning at her, “I was thinking you could hang them in front of one of your living room windows then in the summer with the windows open, they’d sound but they won’t get ruined in the rain and stuff.”

He looked so eager for her to like them, so happy that she did, so enthusiastic that she set them carefully down and pulled him against her this time, blowing the 78 seconds out of the water. Finally, just as she made up her mind to not let him go, she pulled back, “I think you should go change and we can go to my place to hang up your gift and then we can head over to mom’s and you can have Christmas with us.”

His smile faultered, “I can’t intrude like that. Not on Christmas.”

“You already told me your mom was with your aunt and I’m not letting you stay here by yourself. Besides, I need somebody to keep me from killing my brother. I vote you.”

Reaching desperately for lame-ass excuses he couldn’t really say with any conviction, given he actually would like to spend Christmas with her, “I don’t have any presents for anybody.”

Bless her Irish, ‘you’re full of crap’ internal sensor honed specifically for Mulder bullshit, she gave him a grin, then stood up, “you are a terrible liar sometimes. Go put on some clean pants and a shirt that won’t clash with a Christmas tree because you’re going to end up in photos and …” trailing off, she took his hand, “I better come help you pick something out.”

“Photos?”

“Yes, those celluloid things that mark occasions and cement memories of Great Aunt Matilda getting drunk and wearing a lamp shade for a hat at family Christmas, 1982.”

As he was pulled along to the bedroom, “why would I be in pictures?”

“My mother will say ‘get in the picture’ and you won’t have the will to argue with her because she’s just stuffed you full of two pounds of ham and ambrosia salad. Compliance through food tonnage is her specialty.”

Finally, he gave in, standing patiently as she began pulling shirts from his closet and holding them to his chest, “I love Maggie.”

Once they’d gotten back to her place, he went right to the tree, waiting as she found him a hook, then he hung it up beside the ornament he’d given her when they’d decorated the tree almost a week earlier. This year’s was a filigree snowman, hair-thin white wire, affixed buttons and top hat, smiling coal face, small sign in his hand declaring the year. Standing side-by-side, Mulder slid his hand into hers, fingers warm and solid, perfect fit, perfect match, lit by tree lights and silent in the still dark night.


End file.
